To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure!
- Albus Dumbledore
Been too distracted to post anything sensible in the past few days….
Often times I fall short in understanding the ways of religion. I’d rather follow certain values that I truly believe in and discard the others, than blindly follow all of them.
It sure is hard to comprehend why religion would ask you to pour milk in the mouth of the deceased; or better yet, throw rice on their face?!? A lot like punishing the kith and kin of the departed soul...I’d say!
Death doesn’t affect me to a very great degree. But rituals and ceremonies such as these really start to concern me, even if the dead isn’t one of my near and dear...
You are already mourning the death of a dear one, observing sorrow… and then, how do you justify performing rituals that are even more disturbing??
Leonardo da Vinci said “Our life is made by the death of others.” If that is true, and if matter can neither be created nor destroyed, then why do people have to die?!? And go to the nether world?!? Where is that?
I know I sound silly, but talking about it, I get reminded of a Sheldon book I read a very long time ago... don’t remember too much of the excerpt, but here it is:
"Life's a very thin thread; it only takes a second to snap it!" I can't agree more...
2 comments:
rituals usually have a certain meaning attached to them. what happens is, we stop understanding the significance of these and hence, blindly follow them. thats when the whole point is lost.
famous example of how there was a bunch of sages in a hermitage who would reguarly perform some sort of 'yajna'. once, there was this cat that disturbed the proceedings, and so the leader asked it be tied till the ceremony was done with. it happened a few times, and then came a time when, the cat disappeared. now, the sages in the hermitages had changed or something, and so everytime the 'yajna' had to be performed, they'd go looking for a black cat to be tied down while it was on!!!
the pouring milk / rice bit, am sure has some meaning attached to it. hinduism is a religion of intense mysticism and varied symbolism. unless we delve into the depths of it, it seems meaningless to us.
sorry for the long rant!
Hi dharmabum, I agree with you when you say that all of this has some religious values and meaning, but we just arent exposed to the true meaning of these rituals, which makes it difficult to follow.
Besides, I guess I was just too disturbed and wrote out some pointless stuff. In fact, right after I posted it, I realised that the paragraphs dont even correlate :-/
Thanks for your note and thanks for stopping by! :)
Post a Comment